Python hunt starts in Everglades

At a deserted Everglades hunting camp, Shawn Meiman creeps along a weathered boardwalk, armed with a revolver loaded with shotgun shells — powerful enough to kill something big, with a wide enough spray to allow for less-than-pinpoint accuracy.

Monday was the first day of Florida's hunting season for Burmese pythons, as the state attempts to enlist experienced hunters in fighting the huge, non-native snakes. Since the mid-1990s, Burmese pythons have infested the South Florida wilderness, consuming mammals, birds and other wildlife and competing with top predators such as alligators.

Meiman, 42, is just the sort of person the state is counting on. A fifth-generation Floridian, he runs airboat tours in the Everglades and can navigate airboat trails through featureless sawgrass without a map. He is an experienced hunter, having killed alligators in the Everglades and Cape buffalo in Tanzania. He cares about the Everglades and wants to protect it.

"You have a place that you love and you have these invasive snakes threatening it," he said. "This is going to be a big project for the state of Florida and the Gladesmen to get the snakes out of here."

The state hunt runs through April 17 in parts of the Everglades open to hunting in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, including the Everglades and Francis S. Taylor, Holey Land and Rotenberger wildlife management areas. It is open to anyone with a hunting license who pays a $26 fee.

Heading out in mid-morning from a boat ramp off Alligator Alley, Meiman runs his airboat at 40 mph through corridors of sawgrass carpeted with emerald-green lily pads, his engine flushing great blue herons, wood storks and other wading birds. He stops at Cross Roads camp, a ramshackle hunting camp built on a tree island and begins to hunt.

At this time of year, he said, when the weather is relatively cool, pythons will be in the open, absorbing heat from the sun. He walks slowly along the banks of the tree island, squeezing past brush and getting his rubber boots wet but sees nothing but birds.

Although he checks another hunting camp and scopes out the mud flats where alligators sun themselves, he saw no pythons Monday. But he said he'll be back.

No one knows how many hunters are heading out because pre-registration is not required, but there are reports of people flying in from out of state to participate, said Gabriella Ferraro, spokeswoman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. As of mid-afternoon Monday, she said she had received no reports of any snakes caught, although hunters have 36 hours to report them.

Even with experienced hunters, it is extremely difficult to find the well-camouflaged predators in the largest American wilderness east of the Mississippi.

Asked whether the campaign could make any dent in a population that is known to be breeding, Ferraro said it could at least reduce the problem or prevent it from getting worse.

"If a couple of dozen females are pulled out of there," she said, "that would be snakes that won't be laying eggs."

Linda Friar, spokeswoman for Everglades National Park, said the hunt is worthwhile, despite the difficulty of finding the snakes. "We think it's a really good thing," she said. "The more people who remove them from public lands, the better."

The center of the python infestation is thought to be Everglades National Park, where 1,334 pythons have been removed through 2009. But as a national park, the park does not allow hunting, relying instead on staff and a few select volunteers to catch the snakes.

The biggest killer of pythons in the past few months probably has been the cold weather, although biologists say many pythons were able to wedge themselves into places of safety and wait out the cold.

Although python meat is edible, the state advises against eating it because pythons from the Everglades are likely to contain high levels of mercury. The hides have value, being used in the manner of alligator hides to make shoes, handbags and wallets.

All American Gator Products of Hallandale Beach is prepared to process pythons into consumer products. Brian Wood, the company's president, said none had come in so far, and he expects the weekend to be the time that hunters are out there finding pythons.

Since the state last year allowed hunters to kill pythons during regular hunting seasons, he said he's processed three into products, including a $900 pair of pants.